I Want to Smile Beside you in the Spring That I Haven’t Seen Yet - CH 1.1

For the first time in my life, I was in true love.

I thought about him all the time, and I never got tired of looking at him for hours.

I really, really loved him.

But I lost my love without a moment’s hesitation.

I had gathered up all my courage and confessed my feelings to him while trembling, but he dumped me without hesitation.

It was so easy that I couldn’t help but laugh involuntarily.

But in my heart, I was crying.

Even now, I am crying in my heart.

I am crying while laughing.

And when it becomes too painful to laugh, I run away to this secret place and cry until my tears run dry.

°°°°

“Excuse me, I’m Hirose.”

I knocked on the door of the guidance counsellor’s office and said my name, and I heard “Come in” from inside.

Once again, opening the door, I say, “Excuse me.”

I opened the door to find Mr. Kobayashi, the guidance counsellor, sitting with his arms folded on a table set in the middle of the room.

The intimidating presence of Mr. Kobayashi made my spine tense, as it always does. Perhaps it was because I had something to be guilty of.

I wonder how many times I have come here. I am often called in for individual interviews with homeroom teachers and guidance counsellors, perhaps because I am considered a serious problem child because I always write vague things on my application form. Today, too, I was handed a note at the morning assembly that said, “Please come to the guidance office after school,” and while suppressing the urge to sigh, I went there immediately after the end of the school day.

“Sit down there.”

“Yes……”

I sit down across from him with a downcast look on my face.

Kobayashi Sensei is the math teacher who coaches the kendo club and is famous for being strict and scary. The actual “I’m not a fan of the way you do it,” he said, “but I’m not a fan of the way you do it either.

He would say, “So, it’s been a month since your last interview. Have you found something you want to do?

“I’m sorry ……, I haven’t found anything yet. I’m still at …….

I silently suppress the urge to say, “There’s no way I’ll find something in a month or so.

For me, dreams and goals for the future are so far away that they are not so easy to find, and I think I may never find them.

But in this school, students like me, who have no idea what college or department they want to go to, are in the minority. I sighed in my heart as I stared at the scratches on my desk, “I’m the one who’s crazy.

“Still haven’t decided?”

The professor said, his brow furrowed in exasperation.

“Sorry,” I muttered again.

“What are you going to do when the year is over? The second year of high school is the zero year for entrance exams. You have to start studying for the entrance exam in your second year because it’s too late to start studying in your third year. You have to decide your career path firmly during the first year and do it systematically with your goals in mind……”

I feel like the teacher’s words are passing me by from my right ear to my left.

Because I have heard this story more than ten times already. I’ve heard it from my homeroom teacher, I’ve heard it from my grade school assembly, I’ve heard it from my classroom teacher, and so on. The saying, “You’ll have calluses on your ears.”

It seems that I, who have not yet decided on the university I want to go to, the department I want to study in, or even the career I want to pursue, am in the minority in this grade. That’s why I was called in for individual interviews over and over again.

How is it that everyone can envision the future so many years before then? I can’t even picture myself a year in the future, what I will be doing, or what I will be like.

I can’t even imagine myself studying a professional subject at university, or working at a company to earn money. Will I really be able to become a part of society? What kind of work would I be able to do?

As I asked myself these questions for what seemed like the umpteenth time, the teacher finally softened the momentum of his words.

“Well, I don’t blame you for not being able to think about the future in detail yet,” he said.

I couldn’t help but raise my eyes at his words. I was expecting him to tell me that I did not need to come to a conclusion right away.

But his face was as grim as ever.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but he’s a high school student now, so I don’t think he can be so lenient. He had seen many such students who, in the end, were not accepted by any university.”

“You are already in high school, so you can’t just keep on being lenient about it,” he said. “I’ve seen many students who put off their decision like that, and before they know it, they are in their third year, and since they don’t have a goal, they don’t put much effort into their studies, and they fall further and further behind their peers, and on the day of the entrance exam, they end up not getting into any university.

As I listened, I turned my head to the side again and gave a small nod of agreement.